Are Libertarians the only ones that are truly for smaller government?

Also, I just want to point out, if I'm not mistaken I believe the tea party was originally a Libertarian movement as well. Then Fox News and the (R) establishment kind of took it over.

 

Conservatives want a smaller government, keeping certain aspects. Liberals want to shrink some things conservatives want to keep, but want to grow the other things much more for a large net gain.

Libertarians. Actually libertarians as opposed to Republicans with Libertarian leanings, are close to anarchists, so they want the smallest government. But most people think they're nutty and aren't interested.

Personally I think they do a good job of pointing out what's wrong, but I don't like their policies. I wish they'd get enough seats in the senate and house that they could act like a rudder for a while, siding with the Republicans or Democrats on different things, but being unable to pass a single thing on their own, and unable to stop the major parties should the two work together on something.

Um, I don't think you've been very exposed to Libertarian philosophy. Liberals actually favor significant intrusion on social and personal matters. That's why libertarians that don't want to throw their votes away usually vote republicans.

Obviously there are issue with second amendment rights, being able to set off fireworks, and having the right to build a freaking shed in your own backyard (personal issue with my blue state/county).

But beyond that the reason libertarians are willing to grant flexibility in social aspects is because they simultaniosly prevent others from being forced to accomodate that flexibility. For example in many states discriminating against gays will land you in jail, saying mean thing about them could be construed as hate speech and get you in trouble. Discriminating based on race will get you in trouble everywhere. Libertarians allow anybody to put up a sign saying "no (*)(*)(*)(*) or colored allowed" on their private businesses or property (including roads or whatever).

This privatization and all around freedom drives their philosophy and balances it out. For example the classic libertarian litmus test goes like this:

Question: "Should vending machines be able to sell cocaine to children on public streets?"

Correct Libertarian answer: "There should be no public streets."

Which sort of makes things work, because then said vending machine would be owned by the owner of the property(or someone he leased the space too), and people would only be there by mutual agreement.

 

Well, firstly I'd like to say that the Soviet Union was going on the right path before Stalin hijacked it. The circumstances leading to the takeover are possibly more extraordinary than how the Nazis gained power democratically. There were measures planned to safeguard this from happening, but we both know what happened before they were implemented. The Soviet Union's isolation and lack of industrialization also contributed, before the revolution Russia was a feudal state ruled by a royal family.


Anarchism and Communism are both on the far left because they have the same goal - a stateless, classless egalitarian society. We (Anarchists and Communists) disagree about how to reach this stage. Anarchists want to move immediately to this stage but communists think this is unrealistic and are willing to accept/use hierarchical social structures in the short term to achieve this goal as long as they are safeguarded by democracy.


This form of decentralization is a left idea and is a realistic interpretation of Marx's stage of "dictatorship of the proletariat" (rule by the common people). The party implementing this idea in Venezuela is a Socialist one and the leader of the party identifies himself as a Trotskyist (The Marxist theory advocated by Leon Trotsky, some call him the co leader of the Bolshevik revolution).

 

Hmm I'd be interested in knowing which personal, social aspects of society you think Liberals are for. Gun control I guess would be one. I suppose I can only speak for myself when I say I don't think the government should intrude on your right to bare arms but there should be limits. But I don't think most liberals in America want to wipe out guns altogether, unless I'm mistaken. I think on social policies, liberals and libertarians are fairly close, perhaps save a few issues.

I'm interested in that "there should be no public streets" comment. If you privatized all streets who would own them? And if that person had a right to kick someone off their street, since its their private property...I mean, I'm just kind of wondering how that would work. Where would they go if they got kicked out of all private streets??

 

Interesting, super informative! Thanks, RedRepublic. I do have one more question though. Say we implemented your plan in the USA. I am completely confident that some of the small communities formed here would promote racist, discriminative and ultimately harmful ideas. In the system of government you advocate, is there any form of Checks and Balances that protect the minority in those kind of communities from a majority that would seek to treat them as unequal members of the community. Or do those communities basically just get what they vote for and that's that?

 

The communities get what they vote for unless it conflicts with existing laws. The existing laws as they are now are pretty much created by elected representatives too, remember. The communities aren't completely autonomous, they'd have to stick to the basic laws that everyone has to follow, like the current states do. And since the communities are so small if things got too bad you could move.

I think that people are basically good, and a society's views do progress and become better if people are allowed to debate and express them. If people were only looking out for themselves or the group they are commonly grouped with then slavery wouldn't have been abolished and minorities would be much worse off now. If everyone turned mean tomorrow then they wouldn't have it very well off, just like in the past.

 

Oh ok, So there would be some sort of over-arching law that each community had to abide by. So would there still be some sort of central power to enforce basic humanistic laws?

Without at least some centralized government system to enforce some kind of basic humanistic tenets I would be very worried what kind of electorate communities like these would get, and what kind of rules they would come up with:

[video=youtube;d2n7vSPwhSU]http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=d2n7vSPwhSU[/video]

 

remember this old chart?

The big dot on the right chart represents the laws decided upon collectively, each council would have an elected representative or something similar to decide and vote on laws everyone has to obey.

 

Ah! Right! ok. So, in terms of how the USA is set up, is the big dot on the right closer to our federal government or a state government? I'm guessing state government, but I could be wrong.

 

Yes I would say you're right on about liberals and the mainstream Republican party wanting a substantial amount of government power. Liberals obviously want more and then the new Republicans promise to cut down on power and cut taxes but the spending still increases and there's quite a bit of government control. Patriotism (usually blind patriotism, aka Fox News) is used to frequently influence the Republican party, as well as the Bible. So they are typically all for making the government smaller unless it means touching the military, letting homosexuals marry, or do something else that their Bible deems immoral.

Libertarians are truly for less government and although they do want to make it extremely small I think America would benefit greatly from some Libertarian influence in our system. Democrats and Republicans are both essentially corporate controlled parties which still argue on a few major topics but they look extremely similar. There's just so much corruption. Political parties are breeding grounds for corruption, win/lose mentality (siding with your guy in a fight no matter what), partisan hackery, you get the idea =\

 

It's closer to state government than federal, but this system is so different that any comparison is pretty meaningless

I guess you could say that every council area would be like a state, and the people would have a lot more control of the area.

 

Sorry I'm interrogating you so much, but this is super interesting to me! So, would all the resources and products come from within those communities? Or would they still trade amongst each other? I imagine there would be more responsibility amongst people to make their own stuff, like agriculture and things like that.

 

They'd be just as interconnected as they are now most likely, they could focus on whatever industries they want to though, It'd be up to them.

 

Competition is your check and balance. This example of government competition (with small communities controlling their own governments) is analogous to free market competition. If certain governments were racist, etc., those who were disaffected would "vote with their feet" and move to a better government. Competition is as good in government as it is in business.

 

What if they are too poor to move? Or what if the electorate votes to have them not able to move? I'm pretty sure, here in the USA, there would be at least some communities that might actually legalize slavery again. That is, if they aren't prohibited by some outside force.

 

OK, since you want to engage in reductio ad absurdum, since I support localization, you want globalization, then? So if your global government doesn't do as you see fit, who do you appeal too, then? You say there might not be an option to leave my system? There is definitely no option to leave yours, and there is no guarantee that it will be any better.

 

Well, I'm not advocating anything right now. I'm just thinking of all the situations that could come up and how the system you propose would protect against those situations. I don't think what I suspect is such an absurd idea.

 

Surely abuses could occur in my system of competition. The difference is that in your system of monopoly, abuses will be universal, with no escape.

 

Um, ok, again, why are you calling it "my system"? I actually thought RedRepublics ultra-localization idea was pretty interesting.I'm just trying to gain a full understanding of it.

 

OK, my mistake. But your posting made me suspicious that you were just reeling him in. If you truly are undecided then I apologize. Honestly.

 

Understood. Things can get pretty combative around here. But I assure you, I'm not trying to bait anyone. Thanks for the apology

 

Is liberal everything that you dislike? How many nonsenses to read.

 

There are a host of laws restricting social freedoms relative to conservatives.

For example students being able to talk about religion in high schools
Again obviously the weapons thing
but also the ability to legal defend oneself through any means, and especially to protect ones property
A host of things related to what you can and cannot do on ones private property in relation to construction
Requirments for things one must do on their own property (for example making you buy those new light bulbs).
They generally seek to restrict speech they consider "hateful" when directed against those in their demographics
Relative to republicans they often go after home schooling
being able to spank your kids

You get the drift.

Of course relative the libertarians the gulf is even wider, but conservatives would generally be with you.
For example various forms of slavery are allowable under libertarian thought, so long as the slave (or debatably the legal guardian of the slave such as a parent) willingly entered into the bargain. It might seem for a moment like nobody would agree to those terms, however libertarians don't believe in national immegration policy, so you could imagine them heading over to a part of Africa experiencing starvation and seeing who wants to sign up for a lifetime of servitude in exchange for a lifetime of food and water.

That's a good question to ask a libertarian who thinks they have all the answers. I'd expect they'd say streets would probably tend to be operated by corporations, the idea of benevolent monopolies being fairly central to libertarian philosophy, and talk about the success of turnpikes and toll roads for a bit. They'd say that companies owning streets would be motivated not to kick people off of their streets but to instead seek to achieve mutual gain. Payments would be prefirred, but perhaps some streets would be free becuase of advertisments present on and around them, and perhapse poor people could earn their way by having to perform cleaning tasks in order to use some streets.

 

I think it's safe to say that individual Americans would not allow slavery to occur within our borders. I know I would never allow it. I don't see how it could ever gain acceptance again. It's universally reviled and it's not even that cost-effective when you consider all the technology we have nowadays.

 

I disagree. I think it's safe to say that without laws forbidding slavery, slavery would occur. Actually, I guess I have to say that it would occur more often than it does now, since it happens now but to a much lesser degree.

To what extent do you really think you could prevent it as an individual? To some extent, surely ... but not to a very great extent.

No. It's popularly reviled. But that's it.

It may not be cost-effective. I don't think it is, in the long term. But slavery is a part of human evolution at this point. If you add up all the people that have ever lived, most of them have been slaves. We won't be getting rid of the compulsion within humanity to enslave others ... or, for that matter, in a twisted sort of way, the compulsion to be enslaved. Neither is present in every individual but it will be with us as a species for a long time.

Slavery is one of those things that requires active prevention. I'm not saying that it has to be a government solution, but it does require people to actively prevent and punish the act of enslavement, and this has to be done in a thorough, organized manner or it won't be sufficient.